


A Cool Breeze Blowing

by masterroadtripper



Series: Best We Can [9]
Category: Newsies - All Media Types, Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Charlie gets a cold, Jack helps him get better, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-15
Updated: 2020-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-01 05:14:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23149864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/masterroadtripper/pseuds/masterroadtripper
Summary: Charlie gets sick during the first cold snap they get.  Jack helps him get better but draws some scrutiny from the rest of the newsies.
Relationships: Crutchie/Jack Kelly, Spot Conlon/Racetrack Higgins
Series: Best We Can [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1555765
Kudos: 45





	A Cool Breeze Blowing

Jack was woken to the sound of sniffling. Sadly, it wasn’t a terribly unusual occurrence these days with the addition of Stripes and Knocker to the lodging house, but this didn’t sound like the sniffling of an upset boy. It sounded like the dry sniffling of someone who had caught a chill and quite possibly a cold on top of that.

A cold gust of wind knocked into the side of the lodging house, shooting a gust of cold air through the cracks in the poorly insulated wood panelling. Jack bet they’d be seeing snow on the ground and mentally reminded himself to remind the guys to bundle up tight for morning sales. It was well into October already and, while it wasn’t entirely unusual to get snow this early into the winter, Jack hoped that it wasn’t going to be an indication of a colder than usual winter.

Closing his eyes and rubbing over them with his fisted hands, Jack hauled himself to sitting - carefully avoiding the thoroughly dented overhead pipe - and listened. Whoever was sniffling could probably do with an extra blanket or two to ward away the cold and prevent them from getting worse. Sitting in the silence, his own blanket pulled up around his shoulders, Jack heard the sniffle again.

It was coming from right underneath him.

Charlie.

Jack didn’t think he’d ever climbed down from his bunk faster than he had just then. Reaching the cold wooden floor, Jack felt the cold seeping through his socked feet almost immediately. In the fading light from the frosted over windows, he watched as Charlie shivered. Jack frowned as he remembered Charlie commenting about the weather changing that morning. Perhaps he’d caught the chill during evening sell when the temperature had started dropping rapidly while none of them were particularly dressed for the wind to change direction as it had.

“Charlie,” Jack whispered into the quiet of the bunkroom. The smaller blond boy slowly and lethargically opened his eyes to look up at him. There was no fire, no sparkle. It was like someone had taken the life out of that blue gaze and had replaced it with stone.

“Youse cold?” Jack asked.

“Mmph,” Charlie managed to force out, the sound just barely an affirmative answer to Jack’s question.

“Shove ova’,” Jack said, tugging his blanket down off his own bunk. Charlie did so without protest and Jack wedged himself between the outside wall and the smaller boy’s back. Draping his blanket over the top of the both of them and holding him close, Jack just hoped his body’s warmth was enough to get Charlie through the night.

* * *

Getting pummelled into the wall was not how Jack was expecting to be woken up the next morning. Tailbone connecting with wood, Jack was suddenly very much awake. Sitting up quickly, partially expecting a second attack, he realized that Charlie had simply sneezed and accidentally hip-checked himself backwards.

“‘M sorry Jack,” Charlie muttered, leaning over and blowing his nose into his handkerchief, “youse really should’na be sleepin’ ‘ere wif me. Youse gonna gets sick too.”

“I’ll be fine,” Jack argued. He never got sick, even when he was young and his mother died. Everyone thought he’d been exposed to her illness. He probably had and yet, he never got it.

“Sure,” Charlie replied before leaning over and sneezing again.

“Youse aint goin’ sellin’ today,” Jack said, reaching out and rubbing a soothing hand across firm shoulder blades and back muscles, feeling them twitching and contracting under his palm.

“Aint gotta looks out for me,” Charlie said with a scowl back over his shoulder, “Jus’ cause of...youse know...you aint gotta worry.”

“Kinda my job,” Jack argued, “I does it for any of the guys. Tells ‘em ta stay in if theys gotten sick. And youse sick.”

Which seemed to placate Charlie as he flopped back onto the bunk and looked at the wood above their heads. Jack could feel the tension in the air between them but refused to acknowledge it. As if by saying what was on their minds would make it true. That his polio damaged body might not be able to fight this cold off. That he may never get to go out and sell again.

Instead of saying anything, Jack traced a finger over the features of Charlie’s face, the skin underneath hot to the touch. His cheekbones, his lips, his jaw. Everything. He couldn’t imagine his world without Charlie in it, so he refused to let himself think that way. Focusing on the lines and contours of the blond boy’s face gave him something to take his mind off of everything else.

“Youse gotsta get goin’,” Charlie muttered through a smile. Pausing to listen, the sounds of sleep in the bunkroom were slowly being replaced by shuffling and the ruffling of blankets. Morning bell hadn’t gone yet, but Jack assumed it would be soon. Then, he’d really get up and actually get the guys going for the day.

“I bets it stays warm all winter in Santa Fe,” Jack said jokingly, running a soft hand through the blond hair almost flopping into Charlie’s eyes.

“Can’t believe youse still thinkin’ ‘bout that,” Charlie joked back, his smile reappearing.

“Aint thought ‘bout it since the first time we did this,” Jack replied, leaning over and cautiously pecking Charlie on the lips. With Race absent from the bunkroom for the second time in almost as many days, the bed across from theirs was empty, affording Jack the opportunity to indulge in one more soft kiss before being startled completely awake by the chiming of morning bells.

“Guess we’s really gotsta get goin’,” Jack said, pulling back and sitting up. Crawling over top of Charlie, he left his blanket wrapped around the blond boy and let the cold of the floor seep into his socked feet.

“Oi, Specs, Henry, Albert, Elmer, up and at ‘em, get a move on!” Jack called into the bunkroom, kicking the nearby mattress belonging to Romeo, who could sleep through almost anything, including, but not limited to Buttons and Knob lighting off a Roman Candle on the fire escape.

“G’mornin’ to you too,” Albert grumbled, unceremoniously dragging himself out of his bed and giving Jack a slap on the back. Looking around and making sure everyone was moving, Jack began to make his way back towards his bunk.

“Is cold out there,” Jack shouted into the bunkroom, turning and making sure Knocker was translating for Stripes before continuing, “Make sure youse all dress warm ‘nd comes and ask if youse aint gots clothes thats warm.”

All the guys either hollered a variation on “yes” towards Jack or grunted in acknowledgement.

* * *

Jack stayed at Jacobi’s only long enough to thank the man in question for sharing his leftovers with them, grab some food for Charlie and find Davey to tell him that he was heading back to the lodge. By noon bells, Jack was sitting next to Charlie and rubbing his back soothingly as he proceeded to cough his lungs out for the third time. He had yet to even attempt to eat the biscuit and ham Jack had brought back for him.

That evening, after almost ten straight hours of doing nothing more than coughing, Race offered up a cigar from his dwindling collection and suggested that perhaps it would calm him down enough to get some sleep in. To let the whole bunkroom get some sleep in. Charlie didn’t protest as he accepted the lit roll and tried to hold the smoke in his lungs for as long as possible. It took another quarter-hour, but Charlie finally fell into a much-needed sleep.

Jack didn’t go selling the next day, crossing his fingers that the rest of the guys made at least twelve cents of sales that day on their own. Charlie needed him. He got a couple of weird looks from the other newsies as they all shuffled out the door, leaving them behind in the cold room, but the concerned smile Race gave him to let him know he had it under control. He and Charlie could stay at the bunkhouse as long as it took Charlie to get better and none of the other guys would say anything about it. If Jack snuck Patches in through the window that night, Mother Martha was none the wiser.

Charlie’s fever broke sometime that night, the blond boy waking in a coughing fit while drenched in sweat and shivering against the air that now seemed much too cold. Jack counted it as a win, helping him strip off the wet shirt and replace it with a different one before letting him lay back down into the embrace of his arms and fall back to sleep.

Jack went out selling the next morning. Morning bells woke Jack, almost a week later, from his first sleep back up in his own bunk. Having finally convinced himself that nothing would happen to Charlie while they all slept, Jack considered it a win, as none of the other guys at the lodge had gotten what Charlie had and their early October snowfall was finally starting to melt. While it wouldn’t last forever and they were bound to get snow all winter, Jack breathed a sigh of relief regardless.

They were okay. They were going to be okay.

**Author's Note:**

> ~~Takes place almost directly alongside "They's Begging You To Stay"~~
> 
> 1) a. Patches is an OC newsie (I know, I know, I know, I keep saying I'm gonna write an intro to him, its in the works)  
> b. Stripes is Morris Delancey (storyline in Hawking the Headlines)  
> c. Knocker is Oscar Delancey (storyline is also in Hawking the Headlines)
> 
> 2) Yes, Roman Candles did exist back then. I don't know where Buttons and Knob would have gotten one, but they had it anyways.
> 
> 3) Stay safe everyone and wash your dang hands please pretty please. Don't know y'all outside of online (that I know of), but I love y'all and would hate for anything to happen to any of you <3 - MRT


End file.
